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First time playing BG2, ATM I'm after Underdark.My party is Keldorn, Korgan, me (wild mage), Edwin, Viconia and Jan. So I've got 3 mages and a cleric. So far I'm steamrolling everything with core rules.

Here's the thing: I don't think my mages are doing enough. When there's a fight I had time to prepare for - everything dies within seconds because I spent last five minutes summoning a minor army, placing triple Skulltraps etc. When there's a fight I had no time to prepare for - it's all up to K+K to clean it up with Haste, Malison and some other essential minor buffs. Either I'm missing something critical or my mages' dps is so slow to roll out that it's usually already over.

So what do you guys usually do with your mage during the fight? Because it feels to me that there aren't enough direct-damage spells out there to justify having more than one mage in your party ever. There's plenty of AoE spells that look really world-destroying on paper, but then I either can't keep enemies in place or they just save. Web+Malison stopped working quite some time ago. Single target damage spells are really weak when it's just one spell like Melf's Flame Arrow or Meteors. Okay, my mage managed to get all five hit this round, yay, that's 25 damage or so. Oh, wait, in the meantime hasted Keldorn dished out four hits with Carsomyr, 40 damage each, everyone is dead.

Edwin: Korgan, I got two already!
Korgan: I'm on seventeen!
Edwin: Eh? I won't have some sturdy dwarf outscoring me...!

It feels like I'm missing the synergy between my fighers and mages, sure it still works but I don't feel like I'm using it to the full potential. Is it how it should be that mages are all about buff/debuff/summon cannon fodder + occasionaly winning the fights single handlely by using up the beefy high-tier spells or complete cheese? Even when fighting other casters it seems that all I really need to do is to Breach and perhaps Nishruu, after that enemy wizard is in four places at once after Korgan got to him. I just don't really kill that much with the mages. And I think that one guy can do the buffing, summoning, debuffing just fine on his own, don't need the other two at all.

I think that my dps output would rocket away if I had a proper archer in my party instead of one of the mages, or best both. There aren't any recruitable and worthy of the Heartseeker as far as I'm aware so optimal setup would be for charname to be a dedicated archer.

What am I doing wrong with my mages? Or do I actually have too many of them?

Part of the problem is the way Bioware/Black Isle nerfed a lot of the magic spells. For instance the game only allows a max number of magic missiles per spell of 5, which is pathetic, a 13th level mage should be getting 7 per spell or an average of 24 damage; like wise he/sh should be doing 13D6 damage with fireballs and 13D6+13 with delayed blast fireball; 13D6 with a lightning bot etc., etc..

Mind you a mage can still deal out serious damage, just wit until you get shape change and other 9th level spells.

An Impr. Hastened warrior will do a lot more damage than a mage / sorcerer. So will a thief, a bard.. yada yada. The mage casts tenser and blades, and he deals as much, if not more, and when coupled with triple-horrid willing (chain contingency) you get insane burst damage. Still it's just temporary, whereas physical damage classes are constant.

Casters gain advantage in aoe damage, and instant-kill skills, but single target pure damage is out of contest.

But, you will never die as a mage.
Mod or not. Insanity or not. Mage never dies.

Mages stack nicely with each other, with party-friendly CC and AoE (not to mention double the time tanking the entire world in Pfmw & co.), to the point where having more than one mage/sorcerer is unbalanced and game breaking.

The main problem you might be having right now, is that the vanilla game can be soloed by a melee character (with good gear) who right clicks enemies.

Edit : You know what...

Spell trap on : Self
Chain contingency : 2 spell images
Spell images cast power words (from scrolls or otherwise) on your spell trap to give you all the spells back.
The images cast time stop one after another, unleashing half the spellbook with alacrity.
The images are dispelled (duration runs out)
You are active again, with all your spells.
Spell trap on : Self...

Just a little update, it feels much smoother now that I have Sarevok instead of Edwin in my party. I also changed my main to sorcerer, it seems to solve most problems regarding damage output.

@Stworca: yeah, surely there are tons of really sick spell combinations due to how magic works in BG - and it's great, nothing is more boring than a mage that has only a variety of disguised zap spells. Thing is it feels really cheap and immersion breaking for me to do something like that. If enemy mages (who are more powerful than any of your mages and have access to all those spells if not more) wouldn't be directed by a braindead AI then boss fights would be cowboy duels - whoever manages to pull Time Stop first, wins. I was refeering more to the usual mage activities during normal fights, I'm perfectly aware that a mage can easily do a seven-spell-combination-kill-everyone gimmick when needed.

Get Sword Coast Stratagems II, and mage fights will suddenly become interesting (and fair, due to pnp amounts of spells). I cannot imagine myself ever going back to the retarded vanilla enemies.